pane [LME] A pane was originally a section or piece of something, such as a fence or strip of cloth. The word comes from Old French pan, from Latin pannus ‘piece of cloth’. The sense ‘division of a window’ is found from the mid 15th century. Panel [ME] comes from the same root. The early sense ‘piece of parchment’ was extended to mean ‘list’, particularly a jury; this led to the notion ‘advisory group’.